I have heard of so called mathtype, I actually tried once. It is not even
close to latex. Of course, if you only OCCASIONALLY typeset very SIMPLE
formulas, fine, Word is good enough. But you need to typeset some good
looking formulas and diagrams, latex is absolutely necessary. You can take
out a math textbook, almost all formulas and equations can be typeset in
latex. Many many complex diagrams (e.g. an automata, control flow, data flow)
can also be easily set in latex. Also, latex has a very g